Thursday, May 6, 2010

Swirling Thoughts #137 - bob is gone but at least vee have cherries






Cherries spotted (but almost missed) in the shuk!
I walked past the first display of cherries thinking surely everyone will have them. But nobody had them. So I asked my regular fruit guy if he had cherries. He referred me back to the first guy I’d seen. I must have looked unhappy with that answer because then he told me someone near the Iraqi shuk also has.

When they start quoting prices in hetzi (half) kilos, you know you are in trouble
In fact two guys near the Iraqi shuk had. There are maybe 60 fruit vendors in the entire shuk. Exactly three of them had cherries today. After tasting one very mediocre cherry, I decided my kids needed to be reminded of cherries. And for 20 shekel, I walked away with a most pathetic looking hetzi kilo of (so far) the most elusive fruit in Israel. Save for blueberries.

I like to think I run like the wind
In truth I plod along. Just me and my ipod. (I refuse to carry even a phone). Me and my ipod, plodding along, imagining we are one with the wind.

But now Bob is in the States. Leaving me with the small issue of my small issue. And so, I plod along behind a massive jogging stroller. I wear the ipod but I shed the delusion that I am one with the wind. I am more one with the concrete. There are some amazing benefits to this type of running (let’s still call it running, please). Of course there is the obvious – I can store my water, check my emails, and sneak peeks at my cutie baby without really slowing down. I also have a chance to take in the scenery – both the beautiful (weeds growing in the cracks of the sidewalk are fig trees) and the hilarious (the Israeli gas company sign). The other day I noticed a deserted tik (bag), called security to alert them to its presence (this is standard procedure, or so the guard in the girls’ school advised me just the day before – so I was ready!) and was still in the general vicinity when they arrived (though running like the wind might have made more sense). I notice flyers posted in Hebrew which I try to decode and when I cannot decode them I whip out my camera and photograph them so I can ask a friend what they mean. So it’s this whole mind-body-sensory experience. In really slow motion. Bob returns tomorrow. I’m charging the ipod. I have a date with the wind.

Slumber party!
Asher is at a sleepover party. Isn’t it a school night, my sister in law asked? Every night is a school night when you go to school 6 days a week. Once the girls realized how the family dynamic had shifted (suddenly we were a pack of girls – no boys or men), they decided we should make our own sleepover party.
Let’s all sleep in mommy’s bed!
Uh, don’t you want to go camping in the attic, girls?

At this moment, they are in sleeping bags in the attic. They fell asleep telling campfire stories like the one about the viper who knocks at the door and says he’s the viper, to please let him in. And he persists and so the door is opened and the viper speaks with a thick Transylvanian accent: I am the viper, here to vipe your vindows! In any case, I expect them to find their way to my bed before morning. Vee shall see.

1 comment:

  1. Aw. I love this one. Anything with window-washing vampire jokes are right up my alley.

    ReplyDelete